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Laymar



Last Updated: 11/19/2009

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Status: Single
City: Manchester
State: Northwest
Country: UK
Signup Date: 9/10/2005

Who Gives Kudos:

up the racket (2)
Monday, May 12, 2008 

Current mood:  accomplished
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes
Here's our first album review of our new Album In Strange Line And Distances... which is available to buy on June 23rd from Amazon, Play.com, itunes. If you see any more reviews please let us know!

ALBUM REVIEWS OF IN STRANGE LINE AND DISTANCES -




Never, never, fall into the trap of judging a band by their album covers, otherwise you might dismiss the superb, sublime and all together magnificent Laymar as some kind of 1980s Scandinavian sub-death metal outfit when in fact they're iLiKETRAiNs chilled out cousins, the post-rock equivalent of the best massage you've ever had.
This makes it absolutely criminal that their current tour seems to venture no further than their home town of Manchester and a residency in Crackington Haven, which might be Thom York's back garden, but is the arse end of nowhere for the rest of the country (sorry, North Cornwall, but pretty as it is, it's not an easy place for the rest of us to get to).



Almost entirely instrumental, dark, low and with enough of a beat to ensure they're not ambient, Laymar are music to listen to on a midnight drive through industrial wastelands. Storm clouds gather overhead, there's a sample of factory noise here and there, Rec 3 in particular sinks to the bottom of a polluted river and slinks along for a while, the ghost of a submarine doomed to wander forever through the wrecks of oil tankers sunk by the apocalypse.



The band consists of just three men: Colin Williams on guitar, piano and synth; Ciaran Cullen on bass and synth; and David Paul on drums and sequenced electronics (and album artwork). Rock minimalism filtered through Godspeed You, Black Emperor and electronic trickery, their music is the sound of the long, long, midnight haul on a work drive you don't want to be on, the sounds that drift through your head as you fall asleep, leaving your mate to drive. The slow turn of the wheel, the drag of the tarmac, the faint memory of the town you've just left. And it's beautiful.



If you can imagine a club hosted on a rusting oil rig, where the main floor belts out Nine Inch Nails and Throbbing Gristle, Laymar are the sound of its chill-out room, the 4.00am sweetener to let you know it's time to go home, past the neon lights of the nu ravers who have a couple of hours in them yet and through the first pale, blood red rays of the morning sun. Were they really there, or did you just sit down beside the rusted air conditioning for a little too long?



You either like industrial or you don't. You either like post-rock or you don't. But if you've ever had time for either, you'll find few places where they come together more beautifully that this. If Sigur Ros were born to soundtrack the desolation of nature, Laymar were born to soundtrack the desolation of the inner city, where robot vultures gather long after mankind has wiped itself off the face of the Earth and music is no more than a memory resonating in the steel skeletons of reinforced concrete. Don't let anyone ever tell you that music should make you want to dance.



- Jenni Cole MUSIC OMH



We will be adding more as we get them so please come back.
PEACE
10:27 AM
 
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Cath Aubergine
Cath Aubergine

 
From http://www.organart.com/ (incidentally one of the best reads on the internet most weeks)......

ALBUM OF THE WEEK

LAYMAR – In Strange Lines And Distances (TV) – Alright look, I’m going to be honest with you here and leave this review as it originally was, I was just about to bin the original review and start again now that Swords has brought the whole thing in to some kind of mind-blowing focus and enabled the beauty and more importantly the unique personality of things like the fifth track here Juvenile Whole Life have revealed themselves properly.

Here’s where the original review started: More of that moody post rock stuff, there’s a tidal wave of it slowly swamping over us now, more of it weekly – more dark moody instrumental epicness and Godspeed your Russian Circles in The Sky. All very beautifully soothing and yes, sky-touching once more, darker clouds in the sky this time but hey, this is just epic instrumental post rock again. It isn’t really until the strange spoken word undercurrent of the final nineteen minute track Swords turns your head and brings things in to focus that Leymar start to really establish a musical personality of their own. Swords is exhilarating, Swords is dark and brooding and suffocating in an understated minimal experimental way – Swords saved it all and just as I was thinking about yelling about no more post rock and pass me that Sammy Hagar album about fast sports cars and hitch-hiking women in short red dresses.... Swords is thrilling, Swords is one of the best pieces of instrumental atmospheric mood music in ages, 28 Days good and beyond the cliches of mere post rock. Throbbing brooding organic instrumental darkness and building drama – an amazing piece of shape shifting music and just when you think they can’t take you any higher the brilliant drama of the drums slowly kick in, brilliant brilliant brilliant! Subtle mood shifting brilliance (I’d tell you it was like the first time you heard Wish You Were Here, I’d tell you it was that good but you’d accuse me of going completely over the top). This will teach me to not half-finish a half-arsed review before getting to the last track - whoooooooosh, just reaching the eighteenth minute and the quiet come down, whooooooooooosh again!

See that was where I got to with the original review. I was going to delete it and start again, but no, and now I’m listening to the album on repeat, besides Swords, I’m not ready for Swords again yet, I’m saving that for later, I just turned Swords off three minutes in, I need that rush again later when I’m really ready to let it in again – it really was that good and less is always more and those first three minutes of it just confirmed that, can’t listen to all nineteen minutes of Swords right now, need to ration the rush... This is an excellent debut album from the Manchester three piece, it took a couple of listens to really grab, the whole album is good, there’s personality here, an original take on instrumental post tock and yes, you do need this album in there with your post rock classics.

And now, three days later here I am finally listening to Swords again - only the second time - I was right about it the first... whooooooooooooosh.
 
Posted by Cath Aubergine on Monday, June 23, 2008 - 8:22 PM
[Reply to this] 
up the racket

 
DROWNED IN SOUND REVIEW:
7/10

www.drownedinsound.com/articles/3487874
 
Posted by up the racket on Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - 2:59 PM
[Reply to this] 
Jan Willem
Jan Willem Broek

 
For those who are not trapped in the English language, here's one from the Netherlands: http://subjectivisten.typepad.com/caleidoscoop/ :-)

Best,

Jan Willem Broek
 
Posted by Jan Willem on Thursday, June 26, 2008 - 9:01 AM
[Reply to this]